The Citizen Awareness Project is chaired by Charlie Smith. He applied for 501(c)4 status last year, which means he was applying to be a social welfare, tax-exempt organization. In tax law, these groups are prohibited from working on behalf of individual political campaigns and are supposed to be issue-oriented.

Their donors are secret.

Smith’s application still has not been approved, but the IRS told him last year that they accidentally leaked the application to the news website ProPublica, which was doing a series of stories on tax-exempt organizations.

An organization can operate without status for as long as it wants, though it risks being asked for back taxes if it does not get eventually approved as a tax-exempt organization.

“This is just all the more reason to believe that we were targeted by the IRS based on our political and policy beliefs,” Smith said Friday, when asked about the contributions. “It’s no coincidence that we were singled-out for interrogation after public reports that we opposed the President’s policies.”

My reaction is So What? This was a waste of this reporters time. I’m sure their our Liberal orgs that have done the same amount of spending against Conservatives. Except the IRS streamlined their applications for tax exemption…. But that’s OK huh, Allison.

YouOverThere

Sorry. Conservative 501(c)(4)’s outspent liberal 501(c)(4)’s by an order of magnitude.

YouOverThere

The reason why applications were filtered by conservative-oriented keywords is because there is so much money flowing into them.

TominIl

Sorry. Obama’s campaign outspent Romney last year. Obama also raised more money than McCain in 2008.

tiredofdogma

That’s campaign money, not 501c4.

TominIl

Very interesting. Can you back that up or should we just believe it because you say so?

501(c)(5)’s (unions) out spent conservative non profits by a large margin too. It is legal for them to do that.

Keith

Damn right the donors are secret. Just look at how the IRS rolls.

Ann_Elin

Gee…an elections lawyer doing something – regardless of which side of the political spectrum – for an political group sure kinda stinks. Ethics for thee but not for me?

Black Republican

Taxpayers are losing what little trust and confidence they might have had in the IRS and the federal government. This is simply overwhelming and unbelievable…and to think the IRS is going to be entrusted with our most personal information as they administer The Affordable Care Act.

Keith

We are cutting it off. No appropriations for the IRS Owebama care.

larsen00

If nothing else maybe this will start the ball rolling for tax reform. A system set up to allow politicians to use the tax code to bribe interest groups is ripe for abuse.

rdandrea

$1,1 million? On what? Maybe the IRS was right to be asking questions.

Black Republican

Did IRS ask the same questions and mete out the same harassment to liberal contributors?

Maybe u should do a story about the 501(c)(4)…how it came to be & how its just another way for organizations that should be paying taxes get to lie thier way into NOT paying taxes…..its a joke. This story is alot of nothing about nothing. This kind of stuff goes on in every administration. Republicans did this in the Bush administrationwith liberal groups also… someone, like the press should remind the general public about these things, because as u well know the general public has a very short memory.gjyi

DJ M

Ginger you’re the most intelligent poster on this thread.

eddie47d

Thanks Ginger for some of us have been following politics for decades and see the same complaints from both sides.

StudyItFirst

Doesn’t the second paragraph in the article say that 501(c)4s are prohibited from making donations for individual campaigns?

Do whether or not they had gained the status, they’d be liable for the taxes.

What’s the whining about–that someone got to cheat less than someone else?

Lallen56

This whole crisis was caused by Citizens United and the resulting upsurge in parties wanting to influence elections. Since President Obama was the one in office at the time of this Supreme Court error the bulk of the applications were for organizations that opposed him – Tea Party, Patriots, etc. And since budgets have been getting smaller for any government agency, the personnel for handling the upsurge in the so-called “social” organizations was probably grossly inadequate.

Consider the possibility that this mechanism was a way to streamline the process. Maybe these IRA employees were just trying to do their job as mandated by law. Maybe the fact that the bulk of the targets was on the right just reflects where the bulk of the abuses actually were.

Any organization with the noted code words is about 99% guaranteed to be political by design, not some benevolent social-good non-profit.

KD

What did unions spend last year? More then a million or less then a million. Unions are 501 (c)(4)’s. Did Bush’s IRS target union before his re-election? Democrats can’t win the the realm of ideas, their only hope is to cheat.

Guest

Unions are actually a 501(c)(5) but still are non-profits.

asa watcher

Unions are their own organizations, did not need to form PACS, and they contributed directly to candidates’ campaigns. Such contributions are limited, public, perfectly legal, and recorded on many government and union websites as required by law.
If you are going to investigate crime, you don’t investigate the Little Sisters of the Nazarene.

Guest

Political parties Federal, State & Local) are not (c)(4)’s but are non-profits, usually 527’s. They ARE allowed to spend money on specific campaigns.

All a non-profit means is that their donations do not have to be claimed as income and taxed as such.
My problem with the IRS is not that they did not issue the non-profit status but that they came back with illegal questions and did not accept or reject the status for years thus virtually freezing them. (c)(4)’s are not required to divulge their donors yet that is one of the Q’s the IRS was asking.

windbourne

Yeah, not much of a surprise why the IRS decided to target these kinds of groups. They are composed of liars through and through.

dough

“This is just all the more reason to believe that we were targeted by the IRS based on our political and policy beliefs,” Smith said Friday. Smith is admitting that these ” Social Welfare” organizations are really in fact political organizations. Only a lawyer, could tell you that he is being picked on while he is breaking the law.

Migrant

The IRS has finally admitted that they targeted and harassed nonprofits based solely on their political leanings. Now, Mr. Obama has chosen the person who headed IRS department that targeted and harassed non profits has been placed in charge of administering the Affordable Care Act. How arrogant is that?

ginico

If anyone is at fault – it’s Congress for letting the IRS change the meaning of that legislation from exclusively to primarily. Why should the IRS be interpreting legislation. Why should these political groups from either side get tax exempt status! We need Congress to do their job!

ginico

Requests from the right DOUBLED after the Citizen’s United Legislation!

ginico

Republicans are doing what they do best . . . distort facts, lie, filibuster and stonewall . . . they don’t care about anything but protecting the top 2% and that’s been going on since Reagen and has contributed to the ever widening distribution of wealth!

Black Republican

You have obviously been drinking the Kool Aid and really do believe such tripe.

Lynn Bartels thinks politics is like sports but without the big salaries and protective cups. The Washington Post's "The Fix" blog has named her one of Colorado's best political reporters and tweeters.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.